Humber’s Health Sciences Guatemala experience

The door to the makeshift clinic had just opened as a young Guatemalan woman appeared. In her arms was a child taking strained breaths. Without immediate emergency attention, the child wasn’t going to survive.

Over 10 days in 2016, students in Humber’s School of Health Sciences conducted health assessments and provided care to almost 300 children living in under-resourced communities in Guatemala.

“You are truly giving us a gift,” Michael Della Penna said to the students on their first day. “You have the most advanced training of any group that visits us.”

Della Penna, the director of the Valle de Los Angeles orphanage, described the reality for children in his care.

For the second year in a row, Burg-Feret selected a team of students from various health sciences programs at the college. This year, the group consisted of University of New Brunswick/Humber Bachelor of Nursing, Practical Nursing and Paramedic students. They were also accompanied by a pediatrician, a nurse practitioner and several local translators.

Read more about the experience here, and watch the full-length documentary, Cultural Humility, that follows the students on their inter-professional journey in Guatemala here.